It seems there’s been no shortage of global electric vehicle startups. It’s just that, once they’ve “started up,” can they stay up?
No doubt, the likelihood of success improves greatly when your EV company gets substantial backing. Even better? When those stakeholders are other established automakers.
So goes the story of Croatia-based Rimac Automobili, which just might be the most unlikely of success stories. That’s because the company was established in 2009 by then-21-year-old Mate Rimac, who built an electric car in his garage.
Ten years later, Rimac is all grown up and employs 500 workers. The company also recently announced an influx of cash from a joint effort by Hyundai and Kia. The automakers will dump about $90 million into the electric vehicle maker and also plan to establish a strategic partnership where they’ll collaborate on high-performance EVs.
Along with Rimac’s current business model, the company acts as a supplier of components like batteries and electric power trains and already works with Hyundai and one of its other big-name investors – Porsche. The company says it hopes to “grow from a low volume manufacturer of complex high-end electrification components to an established Tier-1 supplier for the industry.”
Meanwhile, watch Rimac for a few just-for-fun hypercars like this one because… why not?